


In Which Steve Shorts Out Bucky's Brain After a Visit to the Senior Center

by Dandesun



Series: In Which Shenanigans Ensue [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky is so smitten, Clint Loves Pork Rinds, Friends Have Each Others Backs, M/M, Natasha Has a Stuffed Manatee, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve is Sex Positive, Steve is a Weird Flirt, The Ladies Know What's What, mild misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 03:54:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9474536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandesun/pseuds/Dandesun
Summary: Steve's method of flirting with Bucky isn't exactly orthodox and Bucky's too busy letting his imagination run wild to notice that this was all for his benefit. Luckily, Jane and Natasha are there to clear things up.





	

Steve Rogers did volunteer work.

He did a lot of it.

His friends were continuously amazed by this fact because the sheer amount of it was daunting.

“You do realize that I got some of my scholarships because of my service to the community,” he had told them once.

“That means you have to keep doing it?” Sam asked.

“I didn’t do it to _get_ my scholarships,” Steve replied. “I don’t do it to _continue_ to get my scholarships. I do it because I _can_. I’m lucky. A lot of people aren’t. It’s just the right thing to do to help when you can. I mean, does it take _that_ much effort to be nice? To give?”

This was just one of many reasons why their circle of friends often wondered if Steve might be a bit too good to be true. Steve was actually pretty low on the economic totem pole and though the group had never actually tried to figure it out (mainly due to awkwardness) it was believed that he was the poorest of all of them and by a pretty significant margin. Yet he was the one who seemed to think he was far more fortunate than most. What could you do with a guy who had so little and gave so much other than feel kind of bad about yourself for not giving at all?

Steve did have school to focus on so he didn’t do as much during the school year as he did when he was on break but he still did some volunteer work on and off campus.

“I didn’t even do this much volunteer work when I was a Girl Scout,” Natasha said. A significant part of their group was hanging out in one of the student lounges trying to figure out what they wanted to do for the rest of the evening.

All eyes turned to her and studied her with various shades of suspicion.

“Okay,” Bucky sighed. “I’ll bite.” He furrowed his brow at her fiercely. “You were a Girl Scout?”

“Why do you all look so surprised by that?”

“Because unless you actually meant ‘School for Aspiring Young Intelligence Operatives’ we’re having a hard time believing that one.” Tony suggested. He was engrossed in something on his phone and his tablet but could still manage to be a part of the conversation.

“I buy it,” Clint said confidently. He was done for the day at his yoga/martial arts studio and had joined them. “Girl Scouts know their shit. All those patches? You’ve got to go through a lot to get those patches.”

“I had the most in the state,” Natasha said proudly. She beamed at Clint.

“I don’t doubt it,” he nodded, his return smile practically sparkling at her.

The others stared at them. Bucky leaned over to Sam. “Am I this bad about Steve?”

“Yes,” Sam replied immediately. “Actually, no. You’re worse.”

“What’s Steve doing today?” Nat asked suddenly as if she had heard what Bucky whispered to Sam. It was a toss up whether she had or not. Natasha liked to give off the impression of seeing all and knowing all and Bucky hadn’t quite nailed down what was a bluff and what wasn’t.

All eyes turned towards Bucky because, as Jane wasn’t present, he was the one who knew Steve’s schedule the best. Not even Sam had Steve’s various classes and activities at the ready the way Bucky did.

Their friends might call him obsessive… but since they were friends they just referred to it as ‘involved.’ Since Steve didn’t seem bothered by Bucky’s acute knowledge of his goings-on they weren’t either. 

“Today’s Monday,” Bucky said with some authority. “He’s at the senior center. Actually,” he amended as he checked his watch, “he should be here any time. He usually swings by to fetch Jane at Hawthorne on the way back.”

Yes, Bucky knew Steve’s schedule with frightening accuracy and detail.

And there they were, pushing through the doors to the student union laughing together. Steve was wearing his red winter coat with the fur border on the hood. Faux fur, of course. As if Steve would wear actual fur. An image of laying Steve out on a bear-skin rug in front of the fireplace burst into Bucky’s mind… something right out of a Viking or barbarian sex fantasy and the image was a hot one. Except that suddenly, fantasy!Steve looked down and got indignant. “What the fuck?! Are you trying to seduce me on the corpse of a bear? A bear who was probably just protecting its young or looking for food to survive and now it’s a fucking accessory in a cheesy ass medieval fantasy sequence?”

Fantasy!Steve was as angry and vocal as real life Steve and Bucky, in real life, ducked his head with a wide, goofy grin on his face. He looked up to see Natasha giving him the one-eyebrow ‘For real?’ look she was so good at.

Bucky shrugged.

As Jane and Steve neared it became apparent that they were singing. Or Steve was teaching her a song, anyway. 

“I would die to be with my Dolores,” and Steve would gesture for Jane to take it.

“Ay ay ay, Dolores,” she sang with a giggle.

Steve laughed, too, but continued, “I was made to serenade Dolores.”

“Chorus after chorus,” Jane took her cue, still laughing. They reached their friends and Jane grinned at them. “Steve’s got a girlfriend.”

For one horrible moment, the bottom dropped out of Bucky’s entire world. One part of his brain started wailing but the engineer part of his brain (which was formidable) pointed out that Steve _had_ just been to the senior center and Jane was making a joke. This was made more obvious when Steve rolled his eyes and shoved Jane with his elbow.

“Her name’s Dolores,” Jane continued as she sat down, leaning forward conspiratorially. 

The group’s focus turned towards Steve.

“Meeting hot chicks at the senior center, Steve?” Clint asked.

“Dolores,” Steve said patiently. “Is one of the residents there. She’s suffering from early dementia but she’s actually quite nice and very interesting.”

“Interesting how?” “Natasha asked.

Jane poked him. “Tell them,” she grinned. “Tell them how interesting she is.”

“Well,” Steve sighed. “I think she’s run out of fucks to give over what’s deemed appropriate or, at least, that’s what I thought. She likes to be read to and most volunteers felt a little silly or downright awkward reading her requested book.”

Everyone leaned forward slightly in anticipation of the requested book.

“I’m just saying that the volunteers were being a little uptight,” Steve grinned, knowing he was dragging out the reveal. “She’s still a person, you know? It’s not like you hit a certain age and stop being interested in the things we’re interested in. That being said, it _is_ a little daunting to read _50 Shades of Grey_ to an elderly woman dealing with early stages of dementia.”

“Oh God,” Natasha looked horrified. “I can’t even imagine.”

“I mean, the book itself is shite which is bad enough,” Steve sighed. “But the dementia fades in and out and that means I have to read whole sections repeatedly. That means I have to read a shite example of erotica over and over again. I’d complain that it always seems to be the worst parts of it but _all of it_ is the worst part!”

There were snickers flickering across the group as they listened to Steve’s tale. Despite the tale of woe, Steve seemed non-plussed.

“So, really, I get why most of the volunteers would rather not and I’m fairly certain that it’s a sort of hazing ritual to see just how dedicated a person is to the whole premise of helping out the elderly.”

“Oh,” Clint laughed. “They took one look at you and thought ‘this little guy’s going to be a pushover.’ I bet the staff had some sort of pool going as to how long you’d last before quitting altogether.”

Steve’s expression suggested Clint was right on the money.

Bucky snorted. “I love it when people underestimate Steve. It always ends in tears.”

“Sometimes blood,” Natasha nodded.

“Sometimes both,” Jane tweaked Steve’s ear. “He hasn’t gotten to the best part.”

“Having to read _50 Shades of Grey_ in a constant loop isn’t the best part?” Bucky asked. The thought was certainly giving him ideas. Steve had a great voice even if some woman was making him read crap with it. What could he do with some really excellent erotica? Or poetry? Could Steve sing like Jim Morrison? What would Steve look like in leather pants?

The thoughts were compelling.

“Well, I thought maybe I should give her a choice,” Steve continued. “So I brought some Anais Nin.”

“Nice,” Natasha nodded approvingly. “Did it work?”

“Yes and no,” Steve sighed. “What ended up happening was that I’d read some of that dreck and then go ‘You know, Dolores…’” Steve’s tone shifted to an extremely pleasant one that his friends were familiar with. It was the Steve Rogers Has Better Ideas Than You tone and it was usually accompanied by something far off the beaten path.

Bucky thrilled when he heard it as it meant something interesting was going to happen. Tony hated it because it usually meant that Steve had discovered something he hadn’t and that was a huge blow to his ego.

“‘I’ve got another book here that _might_ be better than this one, whaddaya think?’ And yes, I pulled out the Brooklyn for that last part. It was risky because Dolores grew up in Queens but it did actually work.” He paused. “Sort of.”

“Oh God, what does that mean?” Natasha asked, fully invested in the story now.

“It means that I’d read some _Delta of Venus_ and it would be going great and then she’d forget and I’d have to switch back to _50 Shades_ and then talk her into switching again. So it got very weird and very repetitive… well, for me anyway. I mean I had to read absolute drivel but then I’d get to read stuff aloud like ‘Even when they did not look at each other or speak to each other, he could feel a powerful current between them.’”

A small sigh drifted from Bucky’s spot down the table when Steve quoted _Delta of Venus_ but Steve very purposefully did not look in that direction at that moment.

The thing was, Steve Rogers was not stupid and he had very carefully memorized that particular line because he’d had enough time to figure out that taking the risk with Bucky was worth it. They had an amazing friendship. It had caught on almost immediately from the point that Steve apologized for being an asshole about a misunderstanding from first year. Bucky was funny and nice and a bit of a nerd and curious and basically a whole mess of things that Steve really liked.

There was more, though. Steve knew that Bucky was interested in more than friendship and he hadn’t fully acknowledged it because he hadn’t felt comfortable trying to start something up so soon after becoming friends in the first place. And he had been about to spend a semester in France. Steve just didn’t see the point in trying to start a relationship right before he was going to leave the country.

Steve also felt like he needed to experience a few more things before pursuing Bucky… or letting himself be pursued by Bucky… or however that worked. So he had enjoyed the first year of college and then enjoyed his semester overseas. Even though he hadn’t intended to really look for a relationship for the first two years, well, Bucky Barnes was worth a change in plan.

He looked down the table to where Bucky was sitting with a dreamy smile on his face. “That’s when things got interesting.”

Bucky straightened up at that, his expression curious.

“So,” Steve raised his hands to illustrate as he spoke, “I’ve set the scene, right? Dolores wants erotica read to her and all that. Well, it turns out that she used to work in a dungeon back in the late forties.”

The reaction to that rippled down the group of friends.

“What?” Clint asked.

“Really?” Nat looked impressed.

“The forties?” Sam squawked. “That… she’s older than my gran! Seriously, Steve, I feel like you just told me my gran worked in a dungeon!” There was a heavy pause before Sam pointed an accusatory finger at Tony. “Don’t even say a word!”

“What?” Tony was the picture of innocence.

“She had pictures of her back in the day,” Steve continued. “Gotta say, Dolores was something. She had that kind of twist to her smile like Nat does.”

“Aw, Steve, you noticed,” Nat cooed.

“So she started talking about that,” Steve went on. “And, man, her recollection was sharp. So instead of going between _50 Shades_ and _Delta of Venus_ I got stories from the day of a woman who forged her own path. Dolores,” he said with a smile and a firm nod, “is awesome.”

“She does sound pretty cool,” Tony mused. “A real maverick. I like that.”

“You would,” Sam eyed Tony suspiciously.

“Although I am now wondering about Sam’s grandmother.”

“I swear to God, Tony---”

“All right, all right,” Bucky waved his arms between Tony and Sam (luckily they were on opposite sides of the table) “cease fire, cease fire!”

Steve watched Bucky for a moment then continued. “I bet I could work in a dungeon.”

The reaction from his friends was delightful. Everything stopped. Natasha looked interested. Clint looked perplexed. Tony was staring at Bucky. Bucky was staring at Steve, cheeks flushed. Sam was giving Steve a ‘what?’ look and Jane… Jane’s eyes narrowed and her lips compressed.

Jane was suspicious.

“I think I’d be good at it,” Steve nodded. “Obviously, I’d be a dom.”

“Obviously,” Natasha’s smile was predatory and her eyes shifted quickly to Bucky and back.

Well, Natasha knew better than anybody about Bucky’s long-term crush on Steve so Steve took her reaction as a good thing.

“Because that would be unexpected,” Steve leaned his chin on his hand. “People look at me and think ‘He must be submissive’ and I’m really not.”

“No one who knows you would think that,” Bucky managed to choke out.

Steve looked at him. Bucky was even more flushed and his eyes were a little glassy. As far as Steve was concerned, this was going well.

“Thanks Buck.” he smiled. “So… this is what I imagine I’d wear… I think mixing it up would be cool. A combination of masculine and feminine. Like… combat boots, right? And then the pants, the pants are trickier because I don’t think skinny jeans work in this sort of scenario. I think something looser but not too loose because then I lose all the length in my legs and also, gotta show off the ass.” Steve looked primly smug. “I think I have a nice ass.”

Jane full on winced when Bucky gurgled behind her and Sam. She shot Steve an accusing glare and thought seriously about kicking him. This was just mean of Steve and she wouldn’t have thought that of him.

“Prove it,” Natasha said gleefully.

Steve stood up and shed his winter coat, turning to show off what was, indeed, a very nice ass encased in his jeans. Of course, Natasha knew this already. Bucky had talked about Steve’s ass plenty as had two dancer friends she knew that had spent a little one on one time with Steve. Bucky fantasized about its peach-like qualities which wasn’t a stretch, really. Steve was fair of hair and skin and had a vibrant blush and his ass really was a sweet, round little thing. Natasha’s dancer friends _had_ in fact compared Steve’s ass to a peach so she was very much looking forward to the day when Bucky discovered this for himself.

Based on Steve’s current performance, Natasha believed that day would come very soon. She recognized a proverbial door being kicked open very well. Steve was totally hitting on Bucky in that weird, obtuse Steve way of his.

Natasha glanced at her friend. By the looks of it, Bucky hadn’t quite caught on that this was all very clearly for him.

Not that he wasn’t enjoying it. His eyes were glazed over slightly as Steve talked and Natasha had some vague ideas about what might be going on in Bucky’s brain.

This was just _delightful_. It was about time.

Natasha did notice that Jane was giving Steve a severe look and wondered what that was about. Jane knew very well that Bucky had a raging hard-on for Steve. Well, that wasn’t fair, _everyone_ in their group knew that. Jane was one of the group of ladies who were intent on finding out The Truth back when Steve hated Bucky. It couldn’t be that Jane didn’t approve of Steve getting together with Bucky, could it?

No, that was impossible. Jane liked Bucky a lot. They were both Tolkien nerds (Jane much more so than Bucky, to be fair) and were both bringing Thor into that fold. Of course, everyone also knew that Thor was getting into it for Jane’s sake… or at least that’s how it started but now he was hardcore into the linguistics side of it (that was Thor’s major after all) and the three of them would sit around talking elvish to each other. Natasha knew it was more detailed than that but she didn’t care and would loudly remind them whenever they got snooty with her about it.

No, Jane seemed to be glaring at Steve. Maybe she didn’t fully realize what was happening? Even friends could be blind once in awhile.

“What else would you wear, Steve?”

Natasha was a dirty traitor was what she was, Bucky tried to scowl but he was a little too caught up in the picture Steve was painting. Combat boots and tac pants weren’t the first thing Bucky thought of when he imagined his sexy little dreamboat in sexy little scenarios but the idea of Steve wearing those things to set a specific dom mood? Bucky could get into that. And as Steve continued to describe what he’d wear in his theoretical sex dungeon job the image carved itself into Bucky’s brain with stunning clarity.

“A corset for sure. But, like, a waist trainer kind, you know? And black. I mean, I know it makes me look paler than usual but I think the contrast between black clothes and lily white skin is kind of hot. And that’s what I’m going for but I don’t think I’d go for too much of a small waist. I don’t want to look like I’m seconds away from snapping in half.” Steve’s rich laugh trickled down the table and practically caressed Bucky’s ears. “I mean, more so than usual.”

“You’re tougher than you look.” That was Natasha’s voice again, encouraging Steve.

“It’s not hard,” Steve laughed ruefully, “but that is kind of the point, right? Who is this little nothing of a guy and why does he think he can be my dom? Except that I _can_ and I’d be _good_ at it.”

“We usually do wind up doing what you say,” Clint commented. “You don’t have to get the whips and chains out for that.”

“Mmm,” Steve hummed. “The only thing that gives me serious pause is how far I’d be expected to go, you know? Like… I don’t get off on humiliation at all. Got too much of it when I was a kid. Not a turn on. Is there such a thing as a kinder, gentler dom?”

The strangled noise that came out of Bucky at that point was hard to ignore. Most of the group glanced at him but decided not to bring any attention to the way he was trying to hide the fact that he was biting his fist. Bucky was imagining Steve caressing his face wearing the outfit he described. And he was imagining himself wearing a collar with a hoop that Steve would casually slip his fingers into to lead him to wherever he wanted.

“Which means I’m not sure what materials I’d want. Leather? Silk? Some combination? Can I find a thick collar made of leather and silk? What about my arms? Could I find some sort of gauntlet length arm wraps made of both? Do I want want of those bib collars with the leather fringe hanging down over my chest or do I want all that to be naked? Do people still rouge their nipples? There are a lot of things to work out…”

The images flashed through Bucky’s mind just as quickly as Steve spoke. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander where it would. How could he not? Wasn’t all of this an invitation to do just that?

It was, wasn’t it?

Bucky rubbed his thigh aggressively in a cross between arousal and anxiety. Was this just Steve being Steve and going off on weird tangents? Steve had the most sinfully innocent face in the world and was able to use it to great advantage but, at the same time, there was more than a little bit of the devil in him.

Sam glanced down at Bucky’s thigh rubbing and smacked his arm with a scandalized expression.

Bucky huffed at him and gave him a helpless gesture of ‘What am I supposed to do here?’ He looked across the table where Tony and Wanda were watching him and groaned. He covered his eyes with one hand and leaned his elbow on the table. He could deal with this… he could… it was just Steve describing all sorts of things that Bucky very specifically wanted to do with him, that’s all. In his beautiful, deep, dulcet voice that Bucky may have imagined humming in his ear when he was alone and not about to be disturbed. It was just Steve, who Bucky may or may not have imagined in place of a few other hookups since he came to school. 

That’s all.

Steve had plans and they didn’t include anything serious. He deserved the chance to have fun the way he hadn’t been able to growing up. And maybe Steve didn’t remember the fevered, drunken conversation in a dark alcove in a fraternity basement at the end of first year when Bucky had almost kissed him. Steve had slurred so prettily about how Bucky turned him on and that Bucky looked like he’d be all kinds of fun in all kinds of ways. Bucky had nodded enthusiastically and was hoping he was about to finally get a taste of the angry little cat boy he’d fallen head over ears in lust with on a fateful Halloween night several months before but then Steve’s head had lolled back against the wall. He’d sighed and, oh, Bucky wanted to hear him sigh again, 

“But… I’d be serious about you, Buck. You… I’d be _serious_ about you.”

And didn’t that just change everything? And also _explain_ everything? Bucky had happily flirted wildly with Steve when they became friends but Steve had always played along politely while not really increasing the flirting level. Bucky had dialed back his flirtations and concentrated, instead, on making friends which was something, it turned out, that Bucky was deeply invested in.

To find out, though, that Steve maybe did see him as a potentially serious romantic partner? Well…

But Steve didn’t remember the conversation and that wasn’t too surprising because that fraternity had created some apple tasting concoction which proved _dangerous_. (It had taken the entire summer and part of his semester in France for Steve to become friends with apples again. There may have been a mass email to his friends with a picture of him eating bruschetta with apples and brie. “The apples have forgiven me! Or I have forgiven them! Suffice to say, House Rogers has repaired relations with the Kingdom of Apples.” It was a message that ranked high on the Steve Rogers Is A Dork Scale but it was a good one.)

So Bucky had dialed it back even more and focused on being Steve’s best friend even if Sam and Jane had gotten there first. He didn’t care. He wanted to be close to Steve in some way and if friendship was it, then so be it, because Steve was great and Bucky just couldn’t imagine him not in his life now.

The return from France, though… Bucky wasn’t sure but he thought things might be different. Steve was different. There was the definite feel of flirtation in some of their interactions but Bucky had trained himself into not acting that way so he was a little more obtuse than he probably would have been normally.

And now he was just confused because this conversation that went from reading erotica to an elderly woman to a hypothetical career in a sex dungeon as Steve described himself as a ‘kindler, gentler dom’ was hitting all of the right notes. And it didn’t help that Steve furthered it by saying that maybe the career wouldn’t work out because he didn’t like to be the dom all the time and, sometimes, it was nice to nestle in the arms of someone you trusted and let them take the lead in loving you.

If he didn’t know better, Bucky would swear that Steve was giving him the sign that going beyond friendship was actually okay with him now. More than okay… _wanted_.

But he was honestly afraid to look down at Steve and see that the expression in his eyes hadn’t changed and that this was just Steve being Steve… kind of weird, kind of inappropriate, really charming and utterly unavailable.

===========================

“What are you doing?”

Steve looked at Jane as they perused the snack aisle at the store. Sam and Wanda were getting drinks elsewhere.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” she whispered. “What was that… _performance_ earlier?”

“Um…” Steve frowned. “Performance?”

“Steve, what the hell was that sex dungeon thing? I thought you were going to tell them about Dolores and you turned it into some weird porny thing about you being a dom with Natasha egging you on the entire time. Seriously? What was that?”

Steve dropped some bags of Doritos into their cart and turned to face Jane fully. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

She blinked at him. “What?”

Steve repeated the question, obnoxiously dragging out each word.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Why are you angry at me, then?” 

Jane huffed a breath out because Steve was being weirdly cryptic. “I’m mad because I don’t know what you were up to.”

“That’s not why you’re mad.”

“Okay, smart-ass… why am I mad at you?”

“Because you think I either don’t know that Bucky likes me or I don’t care. So either I was being obtuse and oblivious or I was being cruel with my little ‘performance,’” he finger-quoted the last word. “You can’t decide which one you think I’m being which also pisses you off.”

“Okay, well--” Jane scrambled for a moment. This was one of the irritating things about Steve. He was much sharper than even his friends gave him credit for sometimes. “Which is it so I can be appropriately mad?” Except that he had just said that he knew Bucky liked him. Everyone knew Bucky liked Steve but Steve had played at being oblivious for months now. Had Steve known all along? The thing was, Steve liked Bucky or had, at least, been attracted to him but nothing had ever come of it.

Steve had been pretty adamant about not having any romantic entanglements before going to France but now that he was back… Jane face-palmed.

“Yeah,” he snorted and tossed in a bag of Cheetos. “By the way, your faith in me is astounding.”

“Are you telling me that was all for _Bucky’s_ benefit?”

“Of course it was!” Steve laughed. “Did you think it was for the rest of you?”

“Well, why did you do it in front of the rest of us?”

Steve’s smile turned decidedly wicked. “I was sinning boldly.”

Jane, who was raised Lutheran and knew where that quote came from, rolled her eyes. “I don’t think Bucky got it.”

“He seemed pretty distracted,” and here Steve looked uncertain.

“He was distracted because of the things you were saying!” Jane thwapped him in the arm. “He’s probably used to you _not_ doing that with him so he didn’t connect the dots.”

“Well, the only thing I can think of that would be more obvious would be to stick my hands down his pants but I am definitely not doing that in front of all of you.”

“Not going to sin _that_ boldly?”

Steve shook his head then held up a bag of pork rinds. “Seriously?”

“Clint likes them,” Jane shrugged.

“I swear, Clint is like a changeling child. He’s from some other realm or something.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“No, I’m just going to have to figure out how to be more blatant about my interest in Bucky _to_ Bucky.”

Jane considered that. “Maybe give him some to let today sink in. He’ll get it. And then you’ll both live happily ever after. I’ll start writing my wedding toast. I can’t wait to scandalize your mother with this story.”

Steve flushed but smiled. “You think?”

“I’m sorry for not giving you enough credit before.”

A panicked expression crossed Steve’s face. “You don’t think Bucky thought I was being a huge asshole with all that, do you?”

Jane shook her head. “Bucky knows you don’t have a cruel bone in your body. He wouldn’t think you were purposefully torturing him with something he can’t have… not for a second.”

===============================

“I mean, Steve knows I like him. I know he does but he wouldn’t trot out a story like that for no reason. He wasn’t being a dick to me but… what the hell _was_ that?”

“Other than a way to short out your brain repeatedly?” Natasha was preparing her room for the friends to hang out in. She had a lot of floor pillows stashed under her bed that had been collected over the past year for such occasions. “He was giving you the green light.”

“I don’t know,” Bucky hedged. “Wouldn’t he just ask me out?”

“Steve Rogers? Just ask you out?” Natasha laughed. “That’s got no artistic merit at all.”

“So telling us about an old woman, erotica and his imaginings on how he’d work in a sex dungeon had artistic merit?”

“Actually?” Natasha turned and sat on her bed to look at him across the room on her roommate’s bed. “I found the whole thing kind of poetic.”

“Poetic.”

“There’s a woman that Steve’s visiting who is losing her ability to hold onto memories except that in talking to her, he discovers some astounding ones. And, let’s be honest, of course Steve would respond positively to a woman doing that kind of work at a time we tend to think of as repressed. He gave her the ability to express those memories freely and then he shared it. I mean, yes, some of it was funny but the whole situation is rather poignant, which he is definitely aware of. And then he basically spelled out all the things he likes and wants so you could hear it. It’s very ‘every drop of rain that falls a flower grows’ when you think about it.”

Bucky stared at Natasha. It was so easy to forget that she had a bit of a soft, romantic center given how cool and tough she always seemed. “Do _you_ have a crush on Steve?”

“Maybe a platonic one,” she shrugged. There was a lot to admire about Steve. He was so compassionate about the vulnerabilities of others and often inserted himself as a human shield despite his own vulnerabilities, Natasha couldn’t fathom _not_ having strong feelings about him. It was ironic, she supposed, given that she didn’t know what the hell Bucky saw in the guy early on but, once she met Steve and got to know him she realized that Bucky had been on to something from the start. “He’s just… unique, isn’t he? Are you going to go for it?”

“I’m still not even sure that he was giving me the green light.”

“He was.”

“ _You’re_ sure,” Bucky pointed out. “I’m not.”

“What’s it going to take, James?” She sighed loudly. “Is he going to have to stick his hands down your pants for you to get the hint?”

“Well,” Bucky sighed, “I wouldn’t _hate_ that but I don’t think he’d do that unless he was absolutely sure that I was game for it. He takes informed consent very seriously.”

“Yes, I know,” considering that was what had jump-started Steve and Jane’s relationship and also considering that Steve had gotten himself involved in several altercations since then based on similar situations, everyone knew that was a hot-button issue for him. Although, to be fair, Steve had a lot of hot-button issues. “It’s probably why he was verbally throwing himself at you earlier. And I feel I should point out that a lot of it centered on very specific fantasies you have told me and Thor about. And Tony. And Sam, too, I’m guessing, given how he was watching you like a hawk to make sure you didn’t start…” she wiggled her fingers at Bucky’s crotch, “...you know.”

“Yeah, that was a legitimate concern at times,” Bucky agreed.

“So, what are you going to do?”

Bucky picked up Natasha’s stuffed manatee and hugged it. The manatee was well-loved and it’s name was Lorelei (Natasha lifted her chin when anyone asked about it and no one pressed the matter, probably because everyone had something well-loved that they brought from home.) “Is it really possible that Steve is willing? That he wants to?”

“Yes, it is.” Natasha stopped and regarded Bucky for several moments. She smiled gently and reached forward to ruffle his hair. “That’s what worries you, isn’t it? All this effort into yearning from afar and you might actually get what you want? Terrifying.”

“It kind of is.”

“So? What is life without a little terror?”

“Pleasant, I’m thinking,” Bucky said darkly. He shook his head. “I can do this. I’m just… I think I need to just wait for a bit, you know? See what he does. I mean, if I have the idea that he’s opening the door then maybe I’ll see what you’re seeing.”

“It’s not the route I would take,” Natasha’s smile was wolfish, “but it’s a start.”

When the rest of the group arrived with drinks and snacks, Steve happily careened into Bucky’s chest shoulder first. “Hey jerk!”

“Punk,” Bucky grunted. Steve’s smile was incandescent. Was that for him?

Steve dug through the bags and then lobbed a bag of pork rinds at Clint. “Here you go, weirdo.”

Clint caught the bag without even looking. “Thanks, hipster.”

As everyone found places to settle in, Steve busied himself getting some drinks and handed one to Bucky before he had even asked for it. He then sat next to Bucky and knocked their elbows together. Happily, it was the elbows not involved in holding their drinks. Steve had a history of not paying attention and making a mess in that regard but this time things went well. It wasn’t anything new for Steve to sit next to Bucky or to initiate or engage in casual, playful touching but Bucky was acutely aware of possibilities at the moment so the press of Steve’s leg against his own sent all sorts of questions through his head.

Across the room, Natasha sent Bucky several pointed looks which Bucky ignored in favor of just being near Steve and getting to imagine _possibilities_. The possibilities weren’t entirely sexual, either. Bucky could imagine a future with all the mundane things like grocery shopping and cooking and cleaning together. He imagined Steve could turn into a gigantic wine snob and get really fussy about pairing food when they had dinner parties with their friends.

Of course, there would always be pork rinds for Clint. Steve would pair that with wine, too. Bucky didn’t know what because he knew fuck all about wine but he could picture Steve becoming an expert. Steve had said good things about it when he came back from France, after all. He could imagine they’d go back to France and Steve would show him the places he visited during his semester abroad.

Mostly, he imagined them holding hands and walking together or watching movies curled into each other on the couch, decorating their future apartment or house or whatever for Christmas, arguing over Christmas music and whether to open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Then the little things like taking care of Steve whenever he was sick or Steve always knowing when he needed…

Steve was bent in front of him, refilling his drink. His eyes flicked up to meet Bucky’s and he smiled softly before taking the bottle back to the designated snack and drink area (Natasha’s roommate’s desk.) Steve sat down next to Bucky again and looked at him. “You’re quiet. Everything all right?”

Bucky gazed into Steve’s eyes before tearing them away and staring down at his refilled cup. “Yeah…” he replied with a sharp nod. “Just thinking, you know?” He looked back at Steve and felt his heart squeeze at the soft look in his eyes.

Steve nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

“Sorry if I’m not being all chatty and shit,” Bucky sighed.

“If you’ve got thinking to do, Buck, you can be as quiet as you want. You don’t have perform for anyone, least of all me.”

Bucky let a slow smile spread across his lips. He blinked slowly and tried his best to pour every ounce of love he had for this little raging ball of amazing that had slammed into his life like a meteor. “So…” he murmured, “tell me more about Dolores.”

Steve laughed and ducked his head. “I hope it didn’t come off like I was making fun of her. I mean, the situation was funny with the constantly reading and re-reading _50 Shades of Grey_ but the circumstances aren’t funny at all. I don’t know how often she gets visitors that are actually connected to her, you know? I’ve only been to see her a few times so far and I visit other people there as well. Sometimes she remembers me… sometimes she doesn’t and I just think it’s all really sad.

“I know I get teased a lot for going there but I guess it’s that I know what it feels like to be overlooked, right? To be forgotten when you’re still standing right there. I can’t fix what’s going on with her mind and her memory but I can at least let her talk about it while she’s still got a grip on it, small as it is.”

“Jesus, Stevie…” Bucky shook his head. “How the fuck are you even real?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know how to respond to that. I’m just me. I’m not doing anything huge by talking to Dolores and the rest of the people there I talk to. I’m doing small things but, I guess, the small things matter sometimes just as much as the big things. Ripples on a pond, you know?”

“Little things matter,” Bucky nodded and just ached at the thought that this could be his for real. He then wisely refrained from pointing out that Steve was a little thing that mattered. He knew that if he pushed it on that front, Steve was likely to punch him in a tender spot. Why ruin a good moment after all?

So for the rest of the evening, Bucky lived on that precipice of _could be_ and only focused on the _now_ before everyone left and Natasha started in on him about how it was _so obvious and would you put us all out of our misery and get with that boy, already?_

But it wasn’t until Jane returned to Natasha’s room after everyone cleared out. Jane lived in the same dorm with Darcy, just up one level and at the other end of the building, and she looked mildly irritated. 

“Oh my God, _date_ him.”

Natasha burst out laughing. “It was a come on, right? That whole story at the Union was a come on!”

“Yes. It was,” Jane sighed. “And I confess I didn’t get it at first which is my bad because that really didn’t say anything nice about Steve but all of that is _beside the point_. The point is, Steve is Steve and you’re different from anyone else he’s hit on because those were pretty easy to clock. Also, you know, _normal_. Apparently he decided to save his weirdest for you.”

“Awww,” Bucky couldn’t help it. That was sweet.

“God, you’re both strange. Date already,” Jane shook her head. “We’re all going to the movies tomorrow. We’ll give you all the space you need. _Date him_. Date the crap out of him so we can all talk about something else.”

“Like you and Thor?” Bucky wondered.

Jane scowled. “Or Clint and Nat?”

“Fuck both of you,” Natasha said cheerfully. “Maybe we should all get lives.”

“Tony would be thrilled if we discussed his love life,” Jane reminded them.

“That’s why we don’t,” Natasha replied. “Also, his love life is boring despite his insistence to the contrary.” She looked at Bucky. “Yours however…”

“All right, all right,” Bucky waved his hands at them to stave them off. “You serious, though, Janie?”

“Steve was totally waving a banner at you today that read ‘Come and get me, stud.’ He told me so.”

“He said that?”

“I’m paraphrasing but, yes, the gates to Castle Steve are open. Go forth and plunder or whatever… something sexier, I guess. Just do it! Nike! Swoosh!”

Bucky grinned. “Okay. You have to stop and I have to figure out how to make my move.”

“Try sticking your hands down his pants,” Natasha supplied helpfully.

“Yeah… I think I’ll start with eye-fucking. Night ladies.”

Jane sagged against the door wearily after Bucky left. “Finally!”

Natasha waved her in. “Let’s drink to that,” she poured two cups and handed one to Jane. “To those two idiots we love so damn much. May there be much getting it on!”

“Cheers!”


End file.
